


trust me

by royalwisteria



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, friendship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalwisteria/pseuds/royalwisteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harper's first memory is of Monty, and their friendship follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trust me

**Author's Note:**

> prompt by the lovely Karina aka [goreskied](http://goreskied.tumblr.com) for the 100fanficwriters June round robin: Harper/Monty: friendship fic (AU is fine) where they grow up together and are finely attuned to each other and also they help each other w/ relationship problems and stuff

Her first memory is at five. Harper’s crawling on the floor under a couch, because she’s playing hide and seek, and then she’s shrieking because a friend is tickling her. “Stop,” she cries, “Monty, stop!” He stops with a smug smirk.

“Your turn to seek,” he says, pushing her back down when she tries to stand with a six-year-old’s clumsiness.

She sticks her tongue out, and that’s all she remembers.

 

 

Monty was fourteen when first scouted by Engineering, and Harper tries to be supportive. Jasper’s supportive, but Jasper is more interested in girls than Monty leaving. Harper’s been friends with Monty longer anyways.

“It’s not like I’m leaving _for good_ ,” Monty says with a sigh. Harper must be pouting, because he always uses this tone when she pouts.

“You will be, though,” she mutters. “I’ll stay on Agro with our parents, and you’ll head off to Engineering, and yadda yadda. Good luck.”

“Harper,” Monty calls, moving to keep up with her through Ark corridors. “Look, it’ll be fine, we’ll still be best friends?”

“That’s not the point,” she cries, waving her hands and hits a passerby on accident. She grumbles a sorry under Monty’s eye. “I just— you’re going to a different school, you’ll make new friends. It’ll be lonely.”

Monty’s eyes soften, and he hugs her. “You’ll make new friends soon enough, okay? Trust me.”

 

 

“Listen,” Monty says, tucking a tablet under his arm while he shoves at a vegetable bed for it to get better light. His hair falls into his face, and Harper is always telling him to get it cut, but he always defends the long bangs with a defensive ‘it looks good on me.’ Harper disagrees. “Harper, he’s not worth it.”

Harper doesn’t reply and swings her legs as she sits on top of the water tank. It’s nearing empty, but that’s what their parents are gonna work on: a better system for producing water for the plants. “I want to say _something_.”

Monty sighs and kicks the bed. Harper bets it hurt. “Just— trust me, okay? Jasper’s not ready, and I don’t think he ever will be.” He pulls a bag from his pocket and Harper eyes it curiously.

“What’re you doing?”

He glances up at her with that smile that screams I’M DOING SOMETHING BAD at her. She’s seen it, after he stole her last cookie, when he pulled down Jasper’s pants when they were eight. “Monty,” she says, voice unintentionally sharp. “Those aren’t your herbs.”

“It’ll be fine,” he says with forced easiness as he crouches by the bed, a pair of clippers in one hand. It hurts Harper’s heart, because _fine_ doesn’t mean safe, or okay, or that what he’s doing isn’t illegal.

“Monty,” she says. He stops for a moment, looks up at her.

“Trust me, okay?”

 

 

She shouldn’t’ve trusted him because Monty and Jasper do get caught. Harper is questioned about her knowledge of the illegal activity, and she denies it with wide eyes, making sure her hair is loose, around her shoulders, making her look younger.

In the end, trusting him didn’t matter, because Harper is caught three months later after stealing food from the cafeteria, a whole tray-full, because her neighbors were all sick and she was tired of the coughing, the sneezing, and the vomiting was an indication that they couldn’t keep down what they did ingest. She’s not sure if it happened from the goodness of her heart, or simply because the sound got to her brain. Her parents had no knowledge, and then Harper was locked up because it hadn’t been the first time.

On the way to her cell, she passes one that contains Monty and Jasper, and there’s loud banging, and Harper thinks she heard her name.

 

 

Monty tosses the screwdriver hand to hand, brow furrowed in concentration. He bites his lip, and Harper grins. “You’ll get it,” she assures him. “You’ll figure out how to take the bracelets off.”

He gives her a weak smile. “Thanks.” He stops tossing the screwdriver around; Harper resumes staring into the ceiling of the dropship.

“I can’t get over how we’re on Earth sometimes,” she murmurs when the silence drags on, no tinkering, no slap of the screwdriver being tossed. “It’s just so surreal.”

Monty snorts. “I got my first dose of reality when Jasper was _speared_.”

“But he’s okay now.” She’s trying to convince herself of it, that Jasper _is_ fine, that he’ll go back to being the brash clown she knows and— “d’you think he’s ready yet?”

“No,” Monty says shortly. “He’s still recovering from a traumatic experience, trust me.”

“Will you ever let me confess?”

Monty doesn’t reply, but there’s a soft _oh_ , then tinkering, and Harper knows she’s not going to get any more out of him.

 

 

After the bridge, Harper gives it a go anyways. She knows Monty doesn’t approve, but she still goes to Jasper and tries flirting. It doesn’t work and she ignores Monty’s sympathetic eyes because it was worth a shot anyways. When she goes out the next morning, just for a walk around the perimeter, Monty dogs her steps.

“Where’s my I told you?” she asks, kicking a tree. “I know you want to say it.”

Monty shrugs, shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’m not that kinda guy.”

Harper snorts. “It’s been years, you know? I feel like I’ve always been chasing after him, and I just— I’m done, now, yeah? I’m fine.”

Monty’s quiet and bumps their shoulders together. She fakes tripping and, when he offers her a hand up, pulls him down with her.

 

 

Mount Weather is cold, and Harper wonders where the greenery is. She was around it more often than the others on the Ark, and then being out around the dropship was like soaking her spirit in life, the heartbeat of a forest, thrumming with activity. Harper finds that she misses that the most, underground, and doesn’t understand where they get all the food.

“How do they even make cake?” she asks Monty one evening. He’s eyeing Jasper, who’s sitting with Maya and others. “Where do they get the ingredients? Are they growing wheat somewhere?”

Monty smiles. “Harper, let it go.”

She eyes him, then her eyes drift around the room. “We’re fine here. It’s safe. You can relax— trust me.”

“Those are my words,” he mumbles, looking back at his plate and forking a piece of his cake. “No saying them to me.”

Harper rolls her eyes good-naturedly. 

 

 

The first time Harper sees Jasper and Maya smile at each other in that special way, she expects it to hurt. There’s a niggling sense of pain, somewhere in the recesses of her heart, and she sits on her top bunk bed in thought, rubbing at her breastbone. Her bunkmate, Rosalina, is curled under her covers and snores lightly. Is this the soundtrack of a broken heart— is her heart even broken?

When she has dinner with Monty, Jasper, and Maya that night, she watches them carefully. Jasper’s fingers linger when they pass the butter dish. Maya looks at him from under her eyelashes. Her heart doesn’t heart— this isn’t right, somehow.

Monty leans over from his neighboring seat and whispers in her ear, “he was never ready for _you_.”

She shoots him a glare, and she wonders if there is anyone ready for her. The only person she can think of is Monty, and then Harper knows that the most fulfilling relationship in her life doesn’t have to be romantic.

 

 

Harper hadn’t wanted to be alone, but Monty being here is the worst possible scenario. His fingers reach up to her from below her cage, and she wants to shy away, but her body is still wracked with pain, and she was always healthy on the Ark, on Earth, but there is no such thing as healthy when your bone is being drilled without any sort of medication.

“We’ll be okay,” Monty whispers to her. She doesn’t have the energy to respond, because he’s been saying this as a litany for however long. Harper doesn’t even know how long she’s been missing, because she blacks out for chunks of time. “Trust me, okay? We’ll be okay. I trust them— Miller— and Jasper, and Maya.” His voice is growing dimmer— because she’s losing consciousness, or because he is? “The others, too. I’m sure Rosalina has realized you’re missing too, and will be asking. Trust me, Harper, someone will get us out here. Clarke is still out there, working to help us, and I have to believe Bellamy’s still alive. Finn too. We’ll be okay…”

 

 

The rifle is heavy, and Miller’s warning about aim remains with her as her fingers convulsively curl and uncurl around the weapon. What would her parents say? They hadn’t cared much about their neighbors, and Harper isn’t sure she cared much herself, but they surely wouldn’t approve of this. They grew things; they grew food, items that gave life to Ark.

Monty looks tired, and there are a few drops of blood on the bottomside of his jaw. He probably doesn’t know it’s there, though Harper knows there’s blood all over her face. It itches, and burns, and reminds her of the cage, the drill, screaming. She doesn’t wipe it off because the itch and the burn ground her to this moment, right here, the gun in her sweaty hands. The itch helps her focus.

Monty’s fingers rub along his jaw and run over the blood. His expression hardens. Monty didn’t get his blood on himself, so those drops of blood must be hers. She swallows and their eyes meet. She can’t hold his gaze for long, but he smiles softly at her just before she moves her eyes again.

Her hands open and close on the gun. He’s like her, like she’s like him, like they have been since children, playing hide and seek in their small apartments, Monty knocking her over and winning that round. Her first memory is of him, and she’s going to make sure that her last memory is of him as well; she’ll just have to make sure that it’s not here, in Mount Weather, and that the ending will be bloody.

 

 

“I won’t forget, you know,” Harper says at Camp Jaha. Jasper is scowling at his plate, and Miller’s eyes are constantly surveying the area, Bellamy shoveling food into his mouth.

“Forget what?” Monty asks with his mouth full. She shoots him a look and he swallows and raises an eyebrow. “Well?”

“You said Miller first and then hesitated before saying Jasper’s name. You thought I couldn’t hear you, or something, and if I had heard you, I’d forget with trying to break out, but I didn’t. So, tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Monty mutters while making circles on his plate with his fork. “Harper, trust me, there’s nothing.”

She rolls her eyes and takes a sip of water. “Monty, that line is so over-used, yeah? Stop it and tell me the truth.”

“He’s just been nice, right? Helpful, he’s got a great smile—” Monty continues while Harper smirks. Miller’s other qualities include: nice biceps, soft hands, ‘he’s actually super compassionate, your levels of caring’, and it’s around there that Monty looks her way and sees the smirk. He purses his lips and refuses to yield. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Looks like someone’s got a crush,” she sing-songs. “This is pretty much the first time, though, isn’t it? I’ve been crushing on Jasper for _years_ and you’ve been friends with so many people, but never a crush.” She pauses, tilts her head and her smile is soft. “It’s nice.”

“Shut up,” Monty grumbles.

“Hey, Miller!” Harper shouts, and his head swings around so fast, for a moment Harper worries about his neck. “Come over here.”

Miller’s default scowl turns into a shy smile and he murmurs something to Bellamy before swinging his legs over the bench, picking his tray up and walking to Monty and Harper’s table.

“What’s up?” he asks, sliding in next to Harper.

“Oh, nothing much,” she says, winking at Monty with the eye Miller can’t see. “I was just about to leave, but I didn’t want to leave Monty alone. Can you keep him company for me?”

“Uh, sure,” Miller says, eyes moving from Harper to Monty. Monty looks fit to kill, but then smiles quickly at Miller.

“See ya later,” she says and leaves the two alone.

 

 

The stars look different on Earth, and Harper can’t decide if she feels smaller or larger here. On Ark, she could see the Earth and feel small in comparison to the planet, but on a small station in orbit, the sun a huge force, the stars in the galaxy and the other galaxies around them. On Earth, she is small compared to a tree, to bodies of water, and nothing prepared her for the rolling fabric of land.

“It’s cold,” Monty says, sitting next to her and wrapping a blanket around them.

“Mm,” Harper says, cuddling closer to her best friend. “D’you miss the Ark? I mean—” she starts, but she doesn’t know what to mean.

“Not really,” Monty replies, getting her. She hadn’t meant: do you miss your parents, the people, a previous life, but more: do you miss the constant chill, the gray interiors, playing hide and seek, looking out a window and seeing Earth below. She should have expected Monty to get her; he always does.

There’s a bright flash of a shooting star and she sits up, excitedly nudging Monty with her elbow. “Hey, a shooting star! Make a wish.” She closes her eyes, thinking hard, but doesn’t know what she would wish for. She has everything she needs right here: her best friend, at times her other half, and a blanket to keep the nip in the air away as they stargaze. She likes this life.

“There’s not a thing I would wish for,” Monty says contemplatively.

Harper glances at him and inches even closer. “Me too.” 


End file.
